Dominant Culture's Language example essay topic

Explanation of Term: Transculturation is a term that ethnographers have used to describe what happens when members of a subordinated or marginalized group select or adopt materials which have been transmitted by a dominant culture. The process of transculturation intersects with language and writing in that the "materials" adopted by a marginalized group might include a written or spoken language. Consequently, the dominant culture's language, rhetorical strategies and writing conventions will begin to be discernable in the letters, narratives and official documents of the borrowing culture. It is also possible that these forms of writing may be used to critique or denounce the actions of the dominant culture that it originated from. The American slave autobiography is an example of a specific genre that is often transcultural as well as oppositional in nature.

In the composition classroom students can analyze transcultural texts, paying close attention to the linguistic and stylistic elements that might define them as transcultural. Relevant historical, social and political information will probably play a large role in the examination of these texts. Relation to the Larger Issue: The process of transculturation, as it applies to ethnography, was first coined by a Cuban sociologist named Fernando Ortiz. As Mary Louise Pratt indicates, Ortiz created the term in an effort to "replace overly reductive concepts of acculturation and assimilation used to characterize culture under conquest" (1990). Although subordinated peoples do not necessarily have control over the materials that the dominant culture transmits, they do have control over what materials get adopted and used.

There is often an active choice that accompanies the process of selectively adapting materials from another culture. In her essay, "Arts of the Contact Zone", Pratt defines transculturation and describes it as a product of the contact zone. Contact zones are social spaces where different cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other (Pratt 1990). One of the possible social spaces where this contact can occur is in the classroom. Pratt urges writing teachers to take advantage of the valuable learning possibilities that the pedagogical arts of the contact zone have to offer. Some of these arts include: " exercises in storytelling and in identifying with the ideas, interests, histories and attitudes of others; experiments in transculturation and collaborative work and in the arts of critique, parody and comparison" (1990).

Using the arts of the contact zone in the classroom allows for divergent voices and viewpoints to be heard and discussed. Representative Views: In her essay, Pratt uses Guaman Poma's nearly four-hundred year old manuscript as one of her primary examples of transculturation. Poma, who was a Peruvian clerk, wrote a 1,200 page document to the King of Spain in order to demonstrate his opposition to the Spanish conquest of Peru. What makes Poma's letter a transcultural text is that he uses both Quechua (his native Andean language) and Spanish (an adopted language) to write his critique of Spanish exploitation and abuse. The Spanish language is one of the materials that Peruvian's adopted from Spanish in the 1600's. Not only is Poma's document written partially in Spanish, but it also assumes the form of a specifically Spanish genre: the chronicle.

This particular genre is the one that the Spanish used to present their American conquests to themselves. As Pratt points out", Guaman Poma took over the official Spanish genre for his own ends" (1990). Poma manipulates the language and rhetorical strategies of the Spanish language to offer an altogether different view of Spain's conquest of Peru. His document is thus an example of a transcultural text acting as unsolicited oppositional discourse. In her essay, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue", Gloria Anzaldua examines the origins of some of the different languages she speaks, and in doing so she reveals the processes of transculturation that helped to shape them. Anzaldua, a Chicana from the valley of South Texas, draws a connection between her identity and the various languages she uses.

For instance, she names Standard and Working Class English as the languages that she learned in school and from the media. Chicano Texas Spanish is the language that is closest to her heart and the one she uses when speaking to her mom, younger brother, aunts and older relatives. The eight different languages she speaks all have their origins in English and Spanish; however, they each have undergone transformations over historical time and geographic space. Transculturation is one of the ways in which languages are created and transformed over time and space. Focusing on the affect colonization has in language development Anzaldua writes, "Chicano, after 250 years of Spanish / Anglo colonization, have developed significant differences in the Spanish we speak" (1987). In particular, she traces the distinct features of Chicano Texas Spanish back to the influences of the Medieval Spaniards.

Not only does Anzaldua examine the transcultural nature of the languages she speaks, but she also switches between languages in the writing of her essay. Although her essay is multilingual, she writes primarily in Standard English. For Anzaldua, Standard English represents the language of the dominant or dominating culture. Interestingly, she uses the tongue of the dominant culture as a medium to question and critique the dominant culture itself. Assignment for Students: The purpose of this assignment is to give students an awareness of transculturation and the role that it plays in the formation of language. Once students are aware of the process they can look for signs of transculturation in certain texts.

1. After students have an understanding of the process of transculturation (Pratt's essay is an good source), ask them to read and analyze Anzaldua's "How to Tame a Wild Tongue". 2. Have students concentrate on her descriptions of the origins of the different languages she speaks, and the transformation they have undergone. It might help to consider some of the following questions.

-What role does the process of transculturation play in the historical formation of the languages Anzaldua writes about? -Anzaldua lists six different languages that all have their origins in Spanish. What are some of the distinguishing features of each of these languages? -What political, social and geographical elements influenced the transformation of the languages? -What is Anzaldua's relationship to Standard and Working Class English?

How and why does she use her essay as a critique of dominant culture in the U.S. ?